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Easy Halloween and fall crafts

Crafting is not something that comes naturally to me. I only have a vague idea of what Modge Podge is, I’ve never yearned for a Cricut, and while I like the end result of a scrapbook, the process seems expensive and tedious. But plenty of times, there are things I would like to decorate with that are either too expensive in the store or don’t exist. That’s when I pull out my trusty glue gun and start trolling the Pinterest boards. The craft projects always make Mike take a deep breath and ready himself because no matter how easy or inexpensive I believe an undertaking to be, it always ends up being way more involved than I imagined.
So you can imagine that Mike was particularly excited when I told him that I had volunteered to help decorate for the costume dance, (can’t call it a Halloween dance) at school. (We also didn’t know that I’d be leading a Girl Scout group only a couple of weeks later.) I didn’t realize that I would basically be the only one decorating. Even so, I still wanted to keep costs down and maximize effect in the large cafeteria. These are some of the things I came up with. They’re simple and created some ambiance…you know….before the lights were turned off and pretty much everything I did no longer mattered because you couldn’t really see it.

Feather mask

This ended up being really messy because of all of the feather bits floating everywhere. Don’t try to do this project “real quick” right before dinner, unless you like your meals extra fluffy. I chose red, purple, brown, and yellow feathers for a fall theme. I began with long feathers underneath and then filled out the mask and covered the quills with short, fat, fluffy feathers.I kept thinking about this scene from Despicable Me while making the mask.
The nice thing about this is that it’s hard to mess up. If there are some bare spots, just add more feathers.

Spiders

This is pretty straightforward. Styrofoam balls, paint, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. I used the cups to keep the balls from rolling around while they dried. The googly eyes didn’t stick to the styrofoam well enough on their own, so I hot glued them on. They looked pretty great stuck in some fake cobwebs. Also, something to always keep in mind: if it looks too big up close, it will look just right from a distance.

Ghosts

Has Pinterest ever lied to you? Of course it has. You try to do something that seems fairly straightforward, it seems to be going well, and then it fails in such a way that makes you sure that the only way it must have worked for that stupid whore is that she offered glittery, Modge Podged sacrifices to Craft Satan. (And when you’re done being aggravated you take back the “stupid whore” comment, but the Craft Satan sacrifice still stands!) Well, this was one of those times. I made my model, doused it with starch, and dried it with my hairdryer. And it all fell apart.
Fortunately, one can still make ghosts with balloons and cheese cloth. I used some craft adhesive spray, and the cheese cloth stayed without a problem. They look a little bit like dementors, but they work in the dark. Add googly eyes to make them silly. And the nice thing is that you get to have ghosts without scaring the crap out of your small children.

Fall trees

For Rachael’s fourth birthday, she wanted a Snow White party. Since we decided to have the party at our pool clubhouse, it meant that any decorations we had needed to be free standing because we couldn’t attach anything to the walls. So I made plywood trees. And when I say I made them, I mean I drew the shape and then sent Mike to cut them out. But I totally spray painted them all by myself. Anyway, I thought they would be perfect for the dance to add a little color and deter kids from running behind the DJ table. The kids loved them….especially the balloons that I placed on the floor in front of them. *shrug*
There may be a better way to rig these up, but so far we’ve done it with skewers, twine, and tape. (Best to use some heavier duty tape to hold the skewers in place.) I created a base of three groups of three balloons. I tied some twine around the bottoms of each set of balloons and then tied one set to a skewer. Attach the skewer to the back of the tree so that the balloons rest on top of the branch. From there, you can build with sets of three balloons on top of the base you’ve created, in a pyramid formation, securing the balloons with tape.

Ribbon’s magical power

Wired ribbon is always your best friend. It can take something ordinary and instantly make it a holiday item that has a little something special.Inexpensive witch’s broom is all dressed up, but nowhere to go.

For table center pieces, I filled mason jars with candy corn. It’s a quick way to add some color, a delicious treat after your finished with it, (Mike doesn’t understand my love for candy corn….because he’s apparently crazy) and is a legitimate use of mason jars. You can gussy up the jars with ribbon around the lid and paper with stickers on top of the lid.